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Sacred Numbers in Christian Thought
A survey of how Christian writers from the early church to the Middle Ages read meaning into numbers such as three, four, seven, twelve and forty.
Scripture, Letters and Calendars
Numbers in Christian and Islamic Tradition
Numerical doctrine, devotion and allegory in Christian and Islamic writing.
Abjad Numerals in Arabic Writing
How the Arabic letters were given number values in the abjad system, and how poets and inscription makers used them to hide dates in chronograms.
Augustine on Number and Divine Order
How Augustine of Hippo argued that number reflects the order of creation, from his reading of Wisdom to his comments on six, seven, forty and the 153 fish.
Dante and the Numerical Design of the Divine Comedy
How Dante built the Divine Comedy around three, nine and one hundred cantos, from terza rima to the circles of hell and the spheres of heaven.
Rosary Beads and Prayer Counting
A comparison of how the Christian rosary, the Islamic misbaha and the Buddhist mala use strings of beads to count prayers, and what their usual numbers are.
The Five Pillars of Islam
The five core duties of Muslim practice: the declaration of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting in Ramadan and pilgrimage, and how they are taught.
The Ninety-Nine Names of God in Islam
The Islamic tradition of the ninety-nine beautiful names of God: where the number comes from, how the lists differ, and their use in prayer and calligraphy.
The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues
How the list of seven deadly sins grew from Evagrius and Cassian through Gregory the Great to Aquinas, and how the seven virtues were later paired with it.
The Seven Heavens in Islamic Cosmology
What the Quran says about seven heavens, how later accounts of the Prophet's night ascent described seven levels, and how scholars linked them to older ideas.
The Trinity and the Number Three in Early Christian Writing
How early Christian writers and the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople framed threefold language about God, and why it is about more than the number three.
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